


Fiction Romance

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (in the side pairing), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Blind Date, Dom/sub Undertones, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Mental Illness, M/M, Misunderstandings, Oblivious Harry, Punk Louis, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 10:11:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18496798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Harry has a type.He likes older, sophisticated, mature men. Well-educated men. Men with life experience and passion for arts and social causes. Men who are established in their careers, who've sorted their lives out.Niall knows this.And so Harry can't understand why he's sat here opposite Louis Tomlinson.A punk Louis/uni Harry blind date AU.





	Fiction Romance

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the warnings for drug use and (implied) mental illness!
> 
> This story has dom/sub undertones but emphasis on the undertones. There's also a one-off joke about daddy kink but it's not at all a part of the story.
> 
> title is from [Fiction Romance / Buzzcocks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTJyg0VyBMU)

Harry has a type. 

He likes older, sophisticated, mature men. Well-educated men. Men with life experience and passion for arts and social causes. Men who are established in their careers, who've sorted their lives out. 

His type was Mason Meyers, the doctor he'd met shortly after starting university, and who, last Harry heard, was still on an extended humanitarian trip to Ghana. His type was Yunis Carter, the postgrad who'd organized open-mic poetry readings at the art gallery before he moved to London last summer. And his type was Nick Grimshaw, the sociology lecturer with his own weekly independent radio programme, who'd been Harry's longest relationship right up until they broke up before the Easter holidays.

Niall knows this.

And so Harry can't understand why he's sat here opposite Louis Tomlinson.

 

 

To be fair, Louis _is_ older than him. But only by two years. And he certainly doesn't have his life figured out.

He works in the record shop where Niall sometimes gives guitar lessons in the basement. He was in a not-so-successful pop-punk band until they split up and now he posts not-so-popular YouTube song covers. When he's not too busy pranking his housemate, his hobbies include playing footie and playing video games.

His speech is almost exaggeratedly Yorkshire. He's never been to uni. His travel experience is limited to clubbing in Amsterdam.

Harry stays to learn all this because he's polite. But he knew as soon as he'd met him outside the pub, leaning against the brick wall with a cigarette dangling between tattooed fingers, beat-up skateboard propped beside him, that this was never going to work.

 

 

Harry informs Niall of his mistake upon getting home that night.

Niall just shrugs and says: "I thought he was a fit enough lad."

Then he snaps the cap off a beer for himself and hands a wine spritzer to Harry.

Harry collapses heavily down into a kitchen chair. "Of course he's _fit_."

He thinks about the way Louis's blue eyes sparkled under his fringe, long lashes brushing his cheekbones —

"Has a nice bum," Niall adds.

Harry eyes him. 'Nice' is a bit of an understatement but, seeing as Niall isn't an expert in the area, he'll let it pass.

"Look, he's just not my type." 

Niall just raises an eyebrow. "Oh, is Louis not old enough for your daddy kink? Not enough grey?"

Harry sputters his spritzer. "What? I don't have a—"

"But what about that once—"

" _Once_ ," Harry hisses, slamming his hand down on the table. "Once and it was humiliating and will never be repeated and, also, I told you that in confidence."

"No worries." Niall leans back in his chair, unconcerned. "Our boy Shawn won't tell anyone."

Harry glances over at where Shawn is sat on the sofa watching ice hockey on the Premier Sports channel Niall makes them invest in. He raises his own beer at him in acknowledgement.

Harry sighs and turns back to Niall. "Look, no, shit. It's not a kink thing."

"So it's a _sugar_ daddy you're looking for?"

" _No_." Harry rubs his eyes. "No, no, no. God. I just like someone in a little more mature place in life."

Niall looks at him for a long moment. Harry is sure he's going to bring up Nick, but instead he just says: "Fine."

"What?" Harry peers at him. "Fine? That's all?"

"Thought you'd be a match, but can't make you like someone you don't, can I?"

"Right," Harry says slowly.

Niall takes a drink. "So, you gave it a shot and now you won't see each other again. No harm done."

"Yeah." Harry fiddles with the label on his spritzer bottle. "After next time, yeah, probably won't see him again."

"Right, so, have ya got an answer for me on those tickets for—" Niall cuts himself off. "Wait. Next time?"

Harry bites his lip.

"Oh, were you too nice to say no when he asked you out again?" Niall asks. "Look, I'm sure he'd understand if you just told him."

"Um. That's not quite what happened?"

"And what does that mean?"

"I might've asked him for his number so we could get together again?" Harry says. At Niall's sceptical look, he hurries to explain, "Look, we were just getting on really well, but it was getting late."

Niall narrows his eyes at him.

"I have my child development class at eight in the morning," Harry reminds him.

"That's not exactly the part I'm — No, you know what, Haz, if you're not interested, it's fine. But you can't lead him on. He's a good lad."

"I know. I wouldn't do that."

"So, you'll tell him?"

"Um. Yeah." Harry pulls out his phone. But then decides it's too late to text him now. He'll do it in the morning.

 

 

He sends Louis a polite good morning and a _this is Harry_ and a _Harry Styles, from last night_ and Louis texts back a photo of a man with a shaved head and his tongue spat out in disgust and then tells Harry about sabotaging his housemate's granola and Harry lets out a big honking laugh and would have probably been kicked out of his lecture except his lecturer is friends with Nick and has been giving him pitying looks all morning. 

And then somehow it's night-time and they've been texting all day, enough that Harry almost gets kicked out of his second lecture, too, and Harry's forgotten to cancel their date.

He resolves to tell him the next day.

 

 

Except the same thing happens again.

 

 

And again.

 

 

And then the next day Harry meets Louis at his record shop. But only because Louis was complaining about the smell of kebabs from the food truck across the road and Harry was hungry anyways.

Between a 'Vintage Finds' and 'Adult toys - Dvds - Poppers - Pills', Harry finds 'Vinyl Tap: Buy - Sell - Trade'. He pushes through the yellow door. Something vaguely punk is playing overhead and dust motes cling to the sun coming through the windows. Beyond the overfilled stacks of records, hand-written discount signs and clutter of memorabilia, he spots Louis Tomlinson at the counter.

His head is bent down over his phone, chin propped on his wrist, fringe falling forward over his eyes. For no good reason, Harry feels his heart speed up.

 

 

Hours later, after kebabs and an ensuing duel with their wooden skewers, after a tour of the shop that shouldn't have left Harry in peals of laughter but somehow _did_ , after Louis shouldn't have let Harry go on and on about his course and his anxieties about his upcoming summer nursery placement but he _did_ , Harry is almost late to his last lecture of the day.

Before he leaves, though, he finally remembers to tell Louis they can't go out again.

But when he turns back around and opens his mouth, what comes out is: "When can I see you again?"

 

 

"The problem is that he's too pretty," Harry tells Niall the next morning.

Niall snorts. " _You're_ too pretty."

Harry groans in frustration. "Not like he is, though. Have you even _seen_ his eyelashes?"

"Can't say as I was paying attention." Niall thrusts his laptop into his rucksack. "And I thought you weren't seeing him again."

"And his hair?" Harry gestures to his own. "It's that kind of messy that has to take him forever to get just right every morning."

"Well, Nick took forever and a day to get his quiff up," Niall points out.

"Yeah, but, Nick, like, isn't _pretty_ ," Harry argues. Sure, Nick liked to look good, to the point of vanity sometimes. But this is different. "Like, maybe Louis can't help his eyes or his eyelashes or his cheekbones. It's not like they're his fault. But his hair? That's intentional."

"And that's a problem because—?"

"I'm supposed to be the pretty one in a relationship." Harry stabs his spoon into his yogurt in frustration. He knows he's a little too tall, a little too broad, jaw a little too strong. He doesn't dislike how he looks, but it's just better if he's with someone taller, broader, more rugged-looking then him.

Louis isn't any of those things.

"Since when are you Sleeping Beauty's evil stepmother?" Niall asks, earning himself a glare that he cheerily ignores. "And also since when are you in a relationship? I thought you were meant to be cancelling your date."

"How do you know I didn't?"

"Because Leigh-Anne said you made her go through your whole wardrobe to find a shirt to wear."

Harry glares around the flat before he remembers that she's already left for campus. "Don't you guys have anything better to do than to gossip about me?"

"Don't you have anything better to do than to lead on my friend?"

"I'm not leading him on," Harry argues. "Just, we're going for Indian tonight. Cancelling now would just be rude."

 

 

Harry steals Louis's Tandoori chicken and then, in the fight for the last samosa, he accidentally kicks him under the table. Louis retaliates by trapping his Chelsea boot-clad foot between his own beat-up Vans. They're making a scene and getting looks from the other diners, but Harry doesn't even care. He's too busy trying to ignore the way his stomach swoops at the sparkle in Louis's blue eyes.

They go back to Louis's because he lives just around the corner and he thinks that his housemate might've recorded the Gogglebox that Niall erased to make room for one of Shawn's hockey games.

They squeeze around the bike blocking the stairs of Louis's narrow little terrace and then Louis gestures grandly at the first floor and says, "Have a seat!"

"Okay. But, um, where?"

"What do you mean where?" Louis says. "On the sofa like a normal person, Harold."

Harry looks pointedly at said sofa. "Okay, but where _on_ the sofa?"

Louis gives him an exasperated sigh, but he doesn't suppress his smile very well as he bundles up one of the piles of clean-looking but wrinkled clothing on the sofa.

"Come on, have a tour."

Harry obediently follows him up the stairs and, when he trips over the cords poking out of the crumbling plaster wall, Louis grabs his arm with a "Whoa, watch it, babe" and somehow doesn't even drop any of clothes.

The second floor has two doors, one closed, the second open to reveal cracked bathroom tile. Louis yells an "Oi oi, Payno!" And gets a "fuck off" in return.

"Not too friendly?" Harry asks when they're far enough up the next flight of stairs that he won't be overheard.

Louis looks taken aback by the very logical conclusion. Taken aback and maybe a little — sad? "Nah," he says finally. "Liam's just. He's alright."

And then Harry remembers that this is the housemate that Louis has been making his life mission to prank, so perhaps that explains it.

Before he can think about it any longer, Louis shoves open the door to the room at the top of the stairs and releases Harry's arm. "Come on in."

Louis's bedroom is small and cramped and made even smaller by the way the ceiling is slanted over the bed. A taped-up tapestry that's half hanging down covers the window in the roof. There's a Leeds Festival poster peeling at the edges and a few others for bands Harry doesn't recognize. 

The double bed, which doesn't quite fit, is an unmade twist of duvet and sheets and a beat-up laptop. A wardrobe's jammed in between it and the wall, though it doesn't look like one of the doors could even open all the way.

"I've seen this room before," Harry blurts out.

"Have you now? Been sneaking in me bedroom, then?" Louis arches an eyebrow at him and then dumps the pile of clothing in his arms onto the bed.

"No," Harry protests quickly. He picks up the stray pair of black boxers that fell onto the floor and hands it to Louis. It doesn't occur to Harry that he should maybe not be touching Louis's underwear until Louis arches an eyebrow as he takes it from him.

Harry looks away to hide the flush in his cheeks. "No, just, I saw your room in some of your YouTube videos."

"Oh." Louis turns to him, looking a bit cautious. "You watched them?"

Harry pinches his lip between his fingers, caught in the unintentional confession. "Yeah. I mean, um. Just a couple?"

"Weren't too shit, I hope?" Louis runs a hand over his hair, and then readjusts his fringe.

"No, no," Harry hurries to protest. "You were — you were really good." He bites his lip. "I liked Drops of Jupiter."

Louis smiles slowly, looking pleased. "Yeah?"

Harry nods, feeling strangely shy.

Louis gestures around his room. "Yeah, well, usually record them in the basement of the shop. But the place was flooded last month so I did a few here. That's why the sound was a bit more shit than usual."

"It wasn't, though," Harry insists. "You have a really, um. You have a good voice."

Louis ducks his eyes for a second and says, "Thanks, H." 

With the surprised-pleased look Louis gets at compliments, Harry kind of wants to make him do it again.

 

 

"Beer?" Louis picks up two bottles from the narrow lime-green fridge.

Harry reaches for the lighter of the two. Beer isn't his favourite , but the only other options Harry can see over Louis's shoulder are the workout drinks scattered amongst takeaway of varying ages.

"Why do you have so many protein shakes?" Harry asks, eyeing the curve of Louis's biceps under his long-sleeve Stone Roses t-shirt. He takes in the way his jeans hug his thighs. Louis certainly isn't taller or broader than him, but he's not that small. And he's more lean than skinny. Harry can't really picture him in the gym but can see him spending his spare time on his skateboard and on makeshift footie pitches.

He might not be Harry's type but that doesn't mean Harry's blind. Completely objectively speaking, he's really—

"Not mine."

Harry jerks his eyes up and feels his cheeks heat at Louis's raised eyebrows. He imagines Louis must be quite used to being ogled like this, but at least he seems more amused than offended by it.

"Um, what's not yours?" Harry asks, struggling to remember what they were talking about.

Louis just gestures to the protein drinks in the fridge and then reaches out to cover Harry's hand in his, trapping it between the cool condensation of his beer bottle and the warmth of his guitar-string callused fingers.

Harry's eyes catch on the 2-8 over the backs of his fingers, the edge of a playing card tattoo peeking out under his long sleeve. He takes in the contrast of Louis's tattoos next to his own unmarked skin, the slender bones of Louis's hand next to Harry's wider one, Louis's fingernails bitten short next to Harry's neatly filed.

Then Louis pops the top off Harry's beer and releases Harry's hand. 

Harry blinks, feeling a confusing sort of bereft at the sudden loss of contact.

"They taste like crap, too," Louis adds.

"They only taste like crap because you'll steal them if I get the good ones," comes a voice from behind them.

Harry startles again at the voice and turns around to see Louis's housemate. He doesn't look much different from the man in the photo Louis had sent, after eating the tainted granola. Though there's less disgust and his eyes are softer, more tired.

"Oh, hi," the man says, looking almost embarrassed at seeing Harry there. He does look like someone who uses protein drinks, if by the way his thick bicep bunches when he runs his hand over his close-cropped hair is any indication. "Sorry, I didn't realize you had someone over, Louis."

Louis snorts. "This isn't _someone_ , you twat. This is Harold, nursery teacher extraordinaire."

The man frowns, looking at Harry in confusion through oddly soft brown eyes.

Harry gives a little wave. "It's just Harry, though. And I'm not a nursery teacher yet, I'm just starting my first internship this summer."

Louis squeezes Harry's arm. "And this social butterfly is Liam. We still got that latest Gogglebox, mate?"

"We should. I haven't seen it yet." Liam starts to retreat to the stairs. "If you're going to watch it, I'll head back up—"

"Mate. Get your arse back here."

"Um?"

Louis grabs a third beer bottle from the fridge and points it meaningfully at the sofa. "Sit."

 

 

Two hours and two-and-a-half episodes of Gogglebox later, Harry is too engrossed by the Welsh couple's reaction to Britain's Got Talent that he misses whatever prompts Louis to remark: "Should get out of the house, mate."

"Me?" Liam asks.

"Who else? Our Harold here is already out of his house."

Harry giggles and adjusts his head against Louis's shoulder. Louis has his arm around his back and, as they've watched, Harry has settled into his side.

With Harry being the larger of the two of them, they really shouldn't fit together so well this way. And yet somehow they seem to. 

They fit together really well.

And, also, Louis's Stone Roses t-shirt is snug enough to hug his lightly toned abs, and there's this spot on his side between the dip of his waist and his hip where Harry thinks his hand would fit perfectly.

Liam's tired voice cuts through Harry's thoughts. "Louis, you know why I—" 

"We could get you laid," Louis continues blithely. "Take you out to Triangle, find you a nice lad—"

"No."

"It's been months, mate."

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint if I'm not bringing a new boy back here every weekend," Liam snaps. "I'm not like you."

Louis aims a swift kick across the sofa. Liam yelps and grabs for his calf.

"Fucking wanker." Louis mutters. But he doesn't seem too offended. Just rolls his eyes at Harry as if it's a joke that he's in on, too.

Harry isn't in on it, though. He's sure he would be utterly humiliated if one of his flatmates had said that to a date he'd brought home. He'd be scrambling to deny it right now.

But Louis has just gone back to watching the telly.

Well, it wouldn't have been true if someone said that about Harry.

That must be the difference.

It takes him just another moment to realize what Louis's casual reaction means — that he'd expected Harry to already know that he's just one more boy in a long line of them.

Maybe this isn't even _dating_ for Louis.

Harry reminds himself that it's a relief. He was meant to tell him they couldn't see each other again, anyways. This just makes it easier.

 

 

"So, you didn't tell him," Niall says slowly.

Harry tucks his hands into the pockets of his peacoat as they cross the road onto campus. "I forgot."

Niall gives him a sceptical look. But it's not even a lie, exactly. Harry had stayed through part of another episode, but with Liam's words churning through his head and Louis's fingers twisting through his curls, Harry couldn't think anymore. So, instead, he'd just made up an excuse and left.

"We don't really have anything in common," Harry says finally. "You know he's not my type."

"Then you have to stop leading him on," Niall insists.

"I know." Though Harry's feeling a bit led on himself, even if that doesn't make any sense. He's the one who's not interested in Louis that way.

"You'll tell him you want to be just mates, then?"

Harry grits his teeth together. "I just said I would."

"Soon?" Niall says. "Before you end up accidentally going on another date?"

Harry's on his way to the library to meet with his small group, but he knows Louis has a shift in Vinyl Tap this afternoon.

"I'll tell him today," he says.

 

 

"Here." Harry hands Louis an orange. At Louis's quizzical expression, he adds, "You looked like you needed it."

"Do I?" 

Louis looks down at it, his long lashes almost brushing his cheekbones. His hair swept across his forehead but with less gel than usual and it looks like it would be soft to touch. It's not a hot day but it's warm in the shop and the sleeves of his white Leeds Festival t-shirt are rolled up his lean biceps. Harry watches the play of muscles of his tattooed forearms as he turns the orange around in his hands. 

"I look like I'm about to succumb to scurvy then?" Louis asks. "Knew I should've eaten that orange me mum gave me at Christmas."

Harry barks out a laugh despite himself and claps a hand over his mouth. The corners of Louis's mouth lift, looking strangely proud of himself for getting Harry to make such an unattractive sound.

"No, no, your fridge," Harry protests. "Your fridge looked like you needed some fruits and vegetables."

"Ah," Louis says. "Did it now?"

"I mean, obviously, you don't look like you need..." Harry's distracted by Louis's eyes, blue and sparkling back at him. He bits his lip. "Um. You look really good."

Louis's lips part on a silent 'oh', as if that was not what he was expecting Harry to say. To be fair, it wasn't what Harry had been expecting to say either.

"Lou—" Harry starts, but then he catches Louis's eyes darting down to look at his lips. He suddenly realizes: Louis wants to kiss him. 

Harry licks his lips involuntarily. He needs to tell him they can't. He just can't remember _why_. Not when his lips are right there, so close and soft-looking and Harry is so curious what he might taste like—

 

 

It's a brief, soft kiss. Just a bare brush of lips. Harry doesn't even get much of a taste before Louis pulls back, staring at him, mouth still parted.

"Is that alright? I—" Harry starts, unsure.

But then Louis curves his hand over Harry's cheek, guiding him closer to press their mouths together again. His lips are gentle, and his touch is light and Harry's heart won't stop pounding.

When he pulls back, Louis's eyes are a light, tender blue in the sunlight from the shop window, creased in crinkles at the edges.

It's the sweetest kiss Harry's ever had. He wants another one right away.

He reaches out for Louis again, not caring that his rucksack jostles against the register or that the edge of the counter digs into his hips. Louis's lips are so much softer than they look, and he tastes like tea and cigarettes and all Harry wants is more and more and more.

Louis keeps the kiss gentler, slower than Harry would and that's — that's doing things to him.

He pulls back from across the counter, straightening up.

"I, um. I should go," he says.

"Should you?"

"I need to—" Harry tries to think. "I need to revise."

Louis's eyes go to Harry's rucksack, heavy over his shoulder with his laptop and course readings. "Right. It's revision week."

"Yeah. I." But Harry can't think. His heart is still pounding. How can it be possible that Louis is so _beautiful_.

"Where are you going?"

"Where?" Harry blinks at Louis. He pushes away from where the edge of the counter still digging into his hip and tries to focus on a reply. "Um, the library was a bit crowded and it's kind of hard to focus there anyways." There was a spot he'd used to like behind the Russian Literature section, but it's probably taken by now. "I don't know. My flatmates will be home so it'll be a bit distracting there, too. I might find a cafe."

"You could work here," Louis says.

"Here?"

Louis gestures to the stairs behind him. "Got the basement if you like. Niall hasn't got lessons today."

Harry bites his lip. "Yeah. That would be... really nice, Lou."

Louis gives him a soft smile and Harry takes the invitation to walk around the counter. And he knows he's meant to be following him downstairs but now that's he's here, stood so much closer to Louis with the counter no longer separating them, he finds his eyes drifting down to his lips again.

"Was that—" Harry starts hesitantly. "Was that okay?"

"Yeah, Haz." Louis says.

Harry looks at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Louis giggles. His eyes are sparkling and he looks amused and happy. He slides his hand under Harry's peacoat and squeezes his hip. "Not quite in the habit of turning down kisses from pretty boys, am I?"

And Harry knows that it's just a joke, knows that someone like Louis wouldn't think of someone like Harry as being pretty, but his stomach still swoops with hearing him say it.

 

 

"You didn't tell him," Niall says flatly.

"It seemed rude, right after he helped me make all those flashcards."

Niall narrows his eyes at him. 

Harry ducks his head into the fridge.

He didn't tell Niall about the kiss. Not the first one. Or the second one where they were laughing and feeding each other orange slices and he couldn't resist the sheen of juice wetting Louis's lips.

Or the last one after Louis locked the door to the shop and he waited with Harry at the bus stop despite Harry's protests that he didn't need to in the drizzling rain, and then pressed a kiss to the corner of Harry's mouth when his bus pulled up.

"You didn't change your mind, then?" Niall asks.

"About what?" Harry lines up the peppers on the worktop and frowns at them. "Didn't I have a yellow one?"

"Think Shawn ate it," Niall says.

"Who eats a yellow pepper?" Harry demands. Niall just shrugs and steals one of the cut-up tomatoes before Harry can slap his hand away. "Well, tell him he owes me one. And that he only gets one fajita tonight."

"Cruel. I'd hate to get on your bad side, H," Leigh-Anne informs from the kitchen table without looking up from her book. "Also, it was Niall who ate it, not Shawn. I saw him."

Harry whirls around on Niall. "I don't even know if I'm more upset that you ate my pepper or that you lied about it. I thought we were friends."

Niall ignores that and says, instead: "So you haven't changed your mind about Louis not being your type?"

Harry pauses, successfully distracted.

"I mean." He bends down to grab a pan from the cupboard. "How could I change my mind about it? He either is or he isn't my type. And he isn't."

Louis likes clubbing and casual hook-ups and has more tattoos than Harry can count, and he works in a record shop and doesn't even know how to fold his clothes or cook proper meals. And, alright, maybe the clothes folding and cooking don't really matter. Harry maybe wouldn't mind being needed for that. Wouldn't actually mind if Louis was here right now so he could cook for him tonight.

But he can't let himself forget the words Nick had dropped on him after eight months together. And Nick was older. Nick was thirty and had a proper career and if he wasn't ready for commitment—

"So, you're going to tell him that, then," Niall says. It's not a question.

"Yeah." Harry bites his lip and turns back to the vegetables on the worktop. "I'll tell him soon."

 

 

Harry doesn't tell him.

What he does do is keep going to the shop every day that Louis has a shift. Sometimes he spreads out his readings on the Chesterfield sofa in the basement, sometimes he takes a seat next to Louis at the counter. Sometimes Louis quizzes him on developmental milestones in under-fives as he reorganizes the Post-Punk shelves.

Nick, despite being an actual lecturer, had tended to complain when Harry insisted on spending time revising when he could be going out with him.

Louis, for all that he never passed his A levels and has never been to uni, takes revision week quite seriously.

Just like Nick, he teases Harry for the way there are more highlighted than unhighlighted words in his copy of The Developing Child. But, unlike Nick, he doesn't try to explain to Harry that it defeats the whole purpose. Instead, when Harry's highlighter runs out of ink, he goes through all the drawers until he finds an old yellow one under a pile of receipts to replace it with.

And Louis might steal Harry's daily study schedules and decorate them with doodles of skateboards and penises and stick figures with curly hair.

But he also refuses to let Harry get distracted when he's supposed to be reading — one afternoon even goes to the lengths of replacing The Buzzcocks on the record player with a selection from their small Classical section — but is more than happy to reward him with kisses when he gets to the end of a chapter.

Because, yes. They do keep kissing.

But it's not Harry's fault that Louis is a such a good kisser.

 

 

"And another problem with Louis," Harry tells Niall, stealing a crisp from the bag in his hands. "Is he calls everyone love and babe and darling."

"So pet names are a problem now, why?" Niall slaps Harry's hand away when he goes for another.

"Because what would he call someone he actually liked? He should at least save something," Harry complains agitatedly. He may have had one too many cups of coffee while working his way through his teaching strategies essay topics that morning.

Niall stuffs the last of the crisps into his mouth and eyes Harry as he chews. "I thought you weren't seeing him anymore, anyways."

"I'm not," Harry lies.

 

 

Harry gets a text from Louis to meet him at Falafel Feast just as his group-study is wrapping up. The shop's only a few minutes' walk from the campus library, which is the only reason he says yes. The only reason he replies immediately and with more than one exclamation point is how hungry he is and has nothing to do with having resigned himself to not seeing Louis for the next two days he'd had off work. 

"The extra's for Zayn," Louis explains at Harry's questioning look at his second portion of chicken shawarma.

"Who's Zayn?" Harry asks.

The more relevant question, it turns out, would have been _where's_ Zayn.

Because Louis, apparently, doesn't actually know. And Zayn, apparently, doesn't have a mobile.

They find a stray cat, who Harry feeds some chicken, underneath the railway bridge, but no Zayn. They find teenagers skiving off class for a smoke behind the skate park, but no Zayn. They pass a half dozen alleyways towards the town centre, but no Zayn.

Harry is starting to get hungry and would be quite irritated at Louis's inconsiderate friend except it's not clear if Zayn was even expecting them to bring him food in the first place.

They find a man spray-painting graffiti onto the side of an off-license in a run-down car park, but no Zayn—

"Oi, Malik!"

Harry stops and glances at Louis, but Louis tugs him forwards by his hand.

The man turns around as they approach and, with a weary sigh, sets his spray paint down to join the pile of others on the cracked pavement.

His black hair is tied back in a short ponytail and his jaw is so sharp it's visible under his thick scruff. He has only a vest on and his body's all angles and tattoos. He has five earrings in one ear alone, including a big black circle that stretches out an earlobe.

"I know you," Harry blurts out.

The man raises a his eyebrow, the barbell that's pierced through it raising as well.

Louis looks surprised, too. "You know Zayn?"

"I mean, no, I don't _know_ him," Harry says. "I just saw him on your YouTube." He turns back to Zayn. "You were in The Lost Boys with Louis, weren't you?"

Zayn looks older than he did in the few low-quality recordings of Louis's old band. He'd had a quiff with a bleach-white streak in it and his nose was missing its current septum piercing.

Louis looks different, too, though. In one video, his hair had been dyed a bright red and spiked in a small attempt at a mohawk, in another it was black. He'd had fewer tattoos, but more piercings. Harry doesn't think he's seen him with even a single piercing in real life.

"Um, you guys were really good?" Harry offers once he realizes neither of them are going to say anything.

"I told you to delete those," Zayn says stiffly.

"You didn't mean it," Louis tells him.

Zayn just narrows his eyes, but, instead of arguing, his attention turns back to Harry. "This is Harry, then? Not as curly as you said he was."

"Oi, don't be rude," Louis snaps.

"It's curlier when it's shorter," Harry protests at the same time, hand going self-consciously to his almost shoulder-length hair.

"Your hair's gorgeous, darling." Louis reaches up to tug at a curl, giving him a soft smile. He adds pointedly, "And very curly."

Then he turns back to Zayn and thrusts one of the take-away bags at him.

Zayn gives it a suspicious look.

"That's food," Louis says. "You might not be familiar, but it's how us mortals sustain ourselves day-to-day."

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat it anyways."

Zayn takes the bag in a hand splattered in blue and green paint.

"Payno says hello, by the way."

Zayn just grunts.

Harry glances up at the graffiti over the brick side of the building. Now that he's paying attention, the giant half-painted tiger actually looks a lot less like graffiti and more like proper street art.

"This is really good," he blurts out.

"Oh." Zayn looks startled by the comment. "You think so?"

Harry nods. "Are you allowed, though?"

Zayn draws himself up and says cryptically, "Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to."

But Louis just laughs. "Mate, you're set up out here in the middle of the day, sun's shining, all the shops are open. Stop acting like you're some dangerous thug." He knocks his shoulder into Harry's. "This lad even gets paid for this. Sometimes."

"Getting paid for art reduces its intrinsic value," Zayn says.

Louis rolls his eyes. "Good thing I bought you a meal, then, isn't it?" 

At Louis's pointed look, Zayn sighs and starts to extract the shawarma from the bag. He hesitates before unwrapping it. "Did, er, did Liam say anything else?"

"That lad says a lot of things," Louis says. He sits down on the ground and props an elbow on Harry's shoulder when he comes down to sit beside him. Zayn bends down to sit on his step-ladder. "You know I don't have the attention span for it. You could ask him yourself if you just came home."

Zayn looks down. "You know I can't do that."

"No, babe, don't reckon I _do_ know that." Louis gestures to Zayn's shawarma. "Now, eat."

 

 

"And you know what else I don't like about Louis?"

Shawn glances up at Harry across the library table. "You seem to be spending a lot of time with someone you don't even like."

Harry wrinkles his nose. "You're starting to sound like Niall."

"I am?" Shawn says, brightening up. "You know, this woman at the corner shop yesterday told me I was picking up an Irish accent."

" _Anyways_ ," Harry says, before Shawn can derail him from the topic. "Did you know that Louis laughs at all my jokes?"

"And you don't like that?"

"All my jokes," Harry repeats. "Even the tofu one."

Shawn's confusion turns to incredulity. "But no one's ever laughed at the tofu one. I thought after we showed you what tofu actually looks like that you'd stopped telling it?"

"Shawn," Harry says seriously. "He even told off a customer when they didn't laugh at it."

 

 

"Sorry if this isn't the best," Louis says, as he passes Harry the joint. "Zayn always found better shit."

Harry takes a drag and passes it back to Louis. Niall doesn't smoke and at get-togethers with Nick's friends weed always seemed to just be there. Harry had never put much thought into the logistics of actually procuring it. "It's good, though. Thank you."

He shifts in his chair, the rusted metal squeaking, to lean on Louis's shoulder. He'd come out of his Early Literacy and Numeracy exam a jittery sort of exhausted, but Louis had seemed to know exactly what he needed.

Next to them on the narrow balcony, there's a drying rack with a stray pair of trousers, damp from an afternoon shower. There's an ashtray balanced precariously on the railing. Louis had apologized when he'd led him out here, saying that, when Liam moved in, he'd promptly banned smoking inside the house.

Thinking about that now, Harry feels like there's something he's missing. "Did Zayn used to live here?" 

Louis sighs and wraps his arm around Harry's shoulder. He's in a comfortable grey hoodie and Harry snuggles into his side as he takes the joint back from him.

"For a couple of years, yeah," Louis says finally.

Harry is about to ask if Liam and Zayn were somehow a couple — they seem even more like opposites than Louis and Liam — but then Louis continues.

"Up until last year when me and Payno came home to a note saying that he quit the band and was moving out, and not to bother trying to find him because he'd got rid of his phone," Louis says. "Don't even know where he's living half the time, these days."

"Oh." Harry bites his lip.

Louis doesn't seem like he wants to talk about it anymore because he turns around on his creaky chair and says, "Come here, H."

He takes another drag and positions his mouth just in front of Harry, chapped lips brushing against his as Harry breathes in the heady, drugged air. 

And then he coughs and laughs and has to break the kiss and Louis is laughing at him and Harry has to kiss him again.

And then they spend the rest of the afternoon making out on the sofa and they kiss and kiss and rub slowly against each other, languidly, and it doesn't even matter that it's not going anywhere because their hands are tangled together and Louis is a perfect weight on top of him.

 

 

Harry may have led Niall to believe he'd stopped seeing Louis. And, since he _is_ going to stop seeing Louis any day now, there was really no need to correct him. In the meantime, it's easy enough to find somewhere else to be on the days Niall gives lessons at Vinyl Tap. Or to just duck into his room whenever they're home at the same time.

But that means he must find someone else to complain to about Louis's black skinny jeans.

"You're wearing black skinnies right now, love." Leigh-Anne looks down pointedly.

Harry sighs as he dips the brush back into the jar of red polish and reaches for her hand again. "Well, yes, that's my point."

"That there can only be one person wearing black skinnies in a relationship?" she asks. "If you were talking about matching tops, I might agree, but jeans are hard to clash. Do I need to make a post about that?"

Harry does love Leigh-Anne's fashion blog, but she's missing the point.

"It's not the jeans. It's what they symbolize," he informs her as he spreads the nail polish over her delicately trimmed nail. There's no chance Louis doesn't know how good he looks in them. And, so, by choosing to wear them knowing that — well, it's the hair all over again. "If he's the twink in this relationship, what does that make me?" He adds as an afterthought, because he can't let himself forget this: "Also we're not in a relationship."

"Okay? Reckon there's a lot I don't understand about gay men." She tilts her head. "Is it like having a top and a bottom? A butch and a femme? There can only be one 'twink'? That all sounds rather reductionist to me, you know."

Harry feels his cheeks flush, feeling chastised even if he knows he's right.

"That's not what I meant." He screws the nail polish cap back on and reaches for his phone. "But just look at me and look at him and tell me what you think."

"Is that Louis?"

Harry nods.

She frowns. "Why is he on your lock screen? I thought you weren't in a relationship."

"We're not," Harry says. 

She raises her eyebrows.

"It's just a nice picture!" he protests. "Don't tell me his cheekbones don't look amazing in that lighting—" But she's still looking incredulous. "You know, never mind that." He holds up the phone against his own face so she can see them side by side. "Just tell me who the bottom and who the top is here."

"I don't think I can tell by one picture of his face," she says. "Seriously, though, love. Why does it matter?"

Harry sighs. It matters because he's not a top. It matters because those extra few inches he'd put on in a late teenaged growth spurt, combined with how he doesn't think he's imagining that his shoulders have grown broader this past year, means that everyone thinks he is.

Once Leigh-Anne's nails are dry, she raises up the bottle of nail polish. "Want me to do yours now?"

Harry hesitates, but then says no. He's sure Louis is under the impression he's more masculine than he really is. And if he's ending things with him anyways, he doesn't see the need to prove to Louis quite yet that Harry isn't _his_ type.

So instead he drops his laptop onto her white lace duvet and opens Louis's YouTube. He decides to start chronologically with an old video of the Lost Boys where Louis croons into the microphone, voice raspy, eyes half-lidded and circled in dark liner. From there, he works his way through to his last from two weeks ago. 

Harry tries to skip to just his favourite parts but, really, she needs to hear the whole song to get the full impact of how Louis's voice cracks on the chorus of Collide and his commentary at the end of the Time-Bomb video was brilliant.

"He is rather fit, isn't he?" she comments early on. "Those eyes and the cheekbones and that arse—"

Harry frowns at her reproachfully. "Don't objectify him."

"Here I thought we were doing this precisely so I _could_ objectify him," she says with a laugh. "Or am I just supposed to _stereotype_ him? Is that different?"

"Well, just. I mean." Harry's stymied. "Don't forget he's gay, at least."

When they get to the end of the last one, Drop of Jupiter from two weeks ago, she sighs and says, "I still don't see the problem. He's fit and he's funny and he's a decent singer—"

"He's a _brilliant_ singer," Harry corrects her. She raises her eyebrows at him. "Look, maybe you just need to see him in person to understand." When she opens her mouth to speak, he quickly adds, "But you're not allowed to see him in person."

 

 

So, naturally, Leigh-Anne shows up at Vinyl Tap the next afternoon.

 

 

"I think he's your top," she informs him later that night when he barges into her bedroom demanding to know her impression.

"See, I told you if you just met him that you'd agree—" Harry stops himself. "Wait. What did you say?"

She giggles. "I said that I think he's your top."

Harry stares. "How can you know that?"

"I suppose I can't," she says. "Unless I walk in on you two shagging—" She holds up a hand. "Which I have no interest in doing, before you ask."

"I wasn't going to _ask_." Harry frowns. "Also, we're not like that. We haven't done that. We're not going to do that."

She raises a manicured brow.

Harry sinks down onto her bed next to her with a sigh. "Look, even if there was some small chance he'd be interested in me if he knew I was a bottom, he's not interested in a relationship anyways."

"Really?" For some reason she seems surprised. "He said that?" 

"He didn't have to," Harry says. "I mean, his housemate said he only liked casual hook-ups and he didn't correct him, so..."

"Maybe he's in as much denial as you are, then."

"What are you talking about?" Harry demands.

"Look, you asked me to see you two in person and tell you what I thought—"

"Actually, I specifically asked you _not_ to come and see him in person," Harry corrects.

"And what it looks like is that you're in a relationship and he's your top." 

As she picks up her textbook again and opens it in her lap, Harry feels a strange and wild hope surge in his chest at the words, stated so simply and matter-of-factly. 

"That's really what it looked like? Are you _sure_?"

"No, H, of course I'm not sure," she tells him. "But if you wanted to be sure you could probably just ask him, you know."

Harry deflates. "I mean. He's not my type anyways. So. It's not like it matters."

"Right," she says. "Also, before you ask, as an unbiased observer, I can assure you that—"

"That what?"

"That his arse is better than yours."

"Leigh-Anne! I wasn't going to _ask that_."

 

 

"Is that _Harry Styles_?"

Harry feels Louis's arm slip down from his waist as he turns to see Ed sat at an outdoor pub table, grin on his face and beer in his hand.

Harry smiles back without thinking about it. It's the first time he's seen him since he and Nick broke up and maybe it's supposed to be awkward but it's hard to be awkward around Ed.

"This is Louis," Harry tells him.

Louis nods at him. "Alright, mate. Had some sick tunes last I saw you. When's your next gig?"

"Wait, do you know each other?" Harry looks between them. "From where?"

"At Niall's party," Ed says.

"Remember, a couple of months back?" Louis prompts Harry. "Ed was there, too."

"I know Ed was there," Harry says. "You were there?"

Louis looks confused. "Did Niall not say...?"

"Come over here," Ed interrupts. "Keep me company, I'll get you lads a pint."

 

 

Louis has Ed in deep conversation about his songwriting process by the time a blond woman appears from the crowd. She giggles as Harry's eyes widen.

"Now, where on earth did you find Harry Styles?" she asks as she plops down beside Ed, beer sloshing from her glass. "Wasn't expecting to see _you_ again."

"I mean," Harry tells her. "I still live here?"

"And who's this?" She turns her attention to Louis.

"This is my b—" Harry claps his hand over his mouth in horror. Was he so used to calling Nick that that he's about to introduce the boy he needs to end things with, the boy who isn't even looking for a relationship, as his boyfriend? He dares a glance at Louis, who just raises his eyebrows at him. Harry finishes lamely with, "Louis."

"He's your Louis?" she repeats.

"Sure, that sounds about right," Louis says easily, slinging a tattooed arm around Harry's shoulder. Harry feels his anxiety drop away and he reaches up to tangle their fingers together, grateful he didn't seem to have messed things up.

Ed laughs, reminding Harry that they're not actually alone. But he doesn't let go of Louis's hand.

"So, what do you do, _Louis_?" Caroline asks, sounding amused.

"Me? I just work over at a record shop." Louis smoothes his fringe over his forehead.

"And he's a singer," Harry puts in when Louis seems like he's not going to continue.

"You are?" Ed asks. "Should've said so, mate. Here I'm going on and on."

"I'm not really—"

"He's really good," Harry interrupts, squeezing Louis's hand. "He writes, too. He hasn't let me hear them yet but I'm sure they're brilliant. You should see his covers on YouTube, they're sick."

"Harry," Louis protests with a giggle as he buries his forehead on his shoulder. 

"They are," Harry insists.

Louis raises his head up, slight flush on his cheeks, looking that kind of embarrassed-pleased he always gets with compliments. It makes Harry want to shower him with all the compliments in the world.

"Fuck, who would've guessed that," Caroline's sharp voices cuts through Harry's thoughts.

"Guessed what?" Harry asks.

"Nick's been on the pull for a proper twink for weeks. That's why he dumped you, wasn't it?" She gestures, beer sloshing in her half-empty glass. "Now you of all people have pulled the twinkiest twink in town."

Harry feels his eyes widen and he drops his hand from Louis's.

"All right." Ed laughs awkwardly as he tries to extract the glass from her hands. "Think this one's had a few too many."

Harry feels his chest tighten.

"Don't worry," Caroline says. "I'll tell Nick all about it. Proper revenge and all that."

"What?" Harry's voice breaks.

"Jesus, that's a bit bloody offensive, isn't it?" Louis snaps.

"That's a compliment to you, love," Caroline says.

"You know, that's not even the part I was talking about." Louis tugs Harry's arm to make him follow him as he stands up. "H, come on. Let's go."

"Oh, and with the best arse in the town," Caroline adds, very obviously checking Louis out now that he's standing up. "You really are living your best life, aren't you, Hazza?"

 

 

They're barely even around the corner when Louis drops his skateboard and tugs Harry into a tight hug.

"Fuck, H, I'm sorry." Louis rubs Harry's back and it makes him feel like crying. "You didn't deserve that."

Embarrassed, Harry bites his lip and tries to pull away, but Louis keeps his arms wrapped around him, not letting him go far.

"I mean," Harry says. "She was a little out of line."

"A little?"

Harry glances down. The setting sun is casting shadows over the cracks in the pavement.

"She kind of gets like that when she has a couple of drinks, though. And she never really stops at a couple. So, there's that." Harry's shoulders slump down. "But she's Nick's friend. And she's a lecturer with him in sociology. So, she would know. It's not like it wasn't true."

"Darling—"

"I mean, not the parts about you, they weren't true—" Harry stops himself. The parts about Louis were sort of true. But having his own thoughts about Louis said out loud like that makes them seem offensive in a way Harry never meant them. So, instead, he says: "That _is_ why Nick broke up with me, though."

Louis cups Harry's cheek in his hand, forcing him to meet his intense blue eyes. "He's a fucking idiot, then. You know that, right?"

"We just wanted different things," Harry says weakly.

 

 

"I can't do this anymore."

Shawn blinks at him from across the kitchen table. "Sorry?"

"We just want different things." Harry tugs his blanket tighter over his shoulders, shifting on his chair.

Since running into Ed and Caroline the night before, the irrational spark of hope Leigh-Anne had given Harry has turned to a sinking feeling churning in his stomach. 

It was clear that Harry's suspicions were right about how he and Louis looked when they were together. More than that, though, it was a needed reminder of why he and Louis wouldn't work out any more than he and Nick had.

"We want — what? Why do you and I want different things?" Shawn asks. "Do you not want to help me anymore? It's okay if you need time for your own subjects, you know. You already helped me a lot this week."

"What? No." Harry frowns. Shawn isn't the best at keeping up sometimes. "Not you and me. Me and _Louis_." 

"Why are you talking about Louis?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you were in the middle of quizzing me on 18th century Western European monarchies?"

Harry glances down at the notes laid out in front of him, all tiny letters and neat bullet points and meticulously straight underlines.

"And, also, because I thought you had ended things with him?" Shawn says.

Harry raises his head. "Why would you think that?"

"Because you kept saying you didn't like him and that you were going to?"

"I never said I didn't like Louis," Harry snaps. "He's the best."

"Okay," Shawn says slowly. "I really don't know what we're talking about then."

Harry wonders, not for the first time, if being a bit slow on the uptake is a Canadian thing. "You should meet Louis, then you'd understand. He's so sweet and generous and talented and he's so much fun." He looks off into the kitchen wistfully. "He deserves someone who thinks he's the best. I wish..." He trails off, then shakes his head. "I'm going to end it. I have to end it."

"Okay?"

"I am," Harry repeats firmly. "And Niall doesn't need to know anything about this conversation, does he, now, Shawn?"

 

 

Harry doesn't end it.

Instead he keeps visiting Vinyl Tap. Keeps spreading out his notes on the basement sofa, keeps bending over the counter and marking up his textbooks with the old yellow highlighter from the receipts' drawer, keeps letting Louis quiz him on early years teaching strategies while he sets up sale displays across the shop.

For all that he's doing it in a record shop, Harry's more efficient at revising than he's ever been, and most days makes it all the way through the daily revision schedules he makes for himself. If Louis teasing him with suggestive touches and then refusing to kiss him until he's through with the day's schedule has anything to do with it — well.

Well, when Harry finds himself pressed up against Louis's lean, warm body, snogging him behind the listening booth, it's all worth it.

It's two days before Harry's last exam and it's many weeks now since he's met Louis and they haven't done more than kiss and occasionally grind against each other. But kissing Louis is brilliant.

Kissing Louis is everything. 

Like right now, when Louis's lips are soft from Harry's chapstick and he tastes like the Dr Pepper they've just shared and his fingers are pressed over his pulse in Harry's neck.

Harry circles his arms around Louis's hips, pulling them closer together, giving him a hint of friction when their crotches line up. He kisses down to his neck, breathing in. Louis smells a little bit like Mayfair cigarettes and a little bit like sunshine.

"You feel so good, H," Louis murmurs. Because, unless Louis's mouth is occupied, he's always saying things like that. Things that make Harry want more and more.

Without giving them explicit permission, Harry finds his hands drifting down to Louis's arse. He's wearing his black skinnies today and he fills them out so _well_.

"Sorry," Harry says when he realizes what he's doing. Maybe if Louis's body hadn't been so bloody perfect, Harry wouldn't hesitate so much. But probably everyone Louis has ever been with has been obsessed with his arse.

"Sorry?" Louis repeats.

Harry, to his embarrassment, finds that he hasn't actually removed his hands. So he lets them drop down and says, "I didn't mean to."

Louis pulls back to meet his eyes, looking confused. "Babe, are you apologizing for touching me?"

"I mean," Harry tries to speak.

"You can," Louis tells him. He takes Harry's hands in his, rubbing his thumbs down the sides of his palms. "You can touch me anywhere you want."

"Yeah?"

The corner of Louis's mouth lifts into a smile and he reaches down to place both of Harry's hands directly back where they had been over his arse.

Harry grips the curve of his bum reflexively, inhaling sharply. He doesn't understand why he feels this way. He's never been that preoccupied with anyone else's arse before. But now he can barely think.

Especially when Louis pulls him in closer and he can feel that, yeah, even through two layers of denim, he's unmistakably hard, just as turned on as Harry is.

"You like this?"

Louis cups Harry's cheek and presses their lips together. He barely pulls away to say, "I do. You always feel so good, H."

"Yeah?" Harry is pleased enough, distracted enough that he finally blurts out, "But you like, um, bum stuff, though?"

Louis giggles. It's not mean, but Harry still feels a flush coming to his cheeks at how horribly awkward he is.

"Course I do," Louis tells him.

Harry bites his lip, embarrassment taken over by disappointment. He knew, though. He _knew_ that.

"What about you, babe? What do you like?" Louis asks softly.

There is utterly no chance Louis isn't expecting him to say he likes to top. Even if he hadn't surely suspected it from the first time he'd seen Harry, the way he can't keep his hands off Louis's bum today must surely seem like proof.

But Harry's _not_ a top. Beyond an occasional curiosity, he's never even considered being one. But now that he's confirmed that it's what Louis likes —

He suddenly, desperately wants to be what he's not. He wants for just a moment to live in a world in which he liked casual sex like Louis does. And a world in which he could be a proper top and he could be with Louis, make it good for him, and have it not shatter his own heart into pieces when it ended in the morning.

He wants to be with Louis so badly right now. If he's honest with himself, he's probably wanted that every day starting with the day he met him. 

But, for all that he might be willing to try it, Harry would certainly be shit at topping. And, more than that, he knows he can't have casual sex. 

"H? Are you alright?" Louis's voice cuts through his thoughts. Harry realizes he must have been silent for a while. He places his hands back on Louis's waist. Safer territory.

"Yeah." Harry doesn't meet his eyes. Fuck. He really does have to end this. "Yeah, I'm fine."

 

 

Days pass.

Harry sits his last exam of the year. He helps Louis record a cover of My Happy Ending and then they make out on the basement sofa afterwards. He and Louis and Liam eat pizzas and binge-watch half a season of Glee in one night. He gets oriented for his summer placement and he continues to avoid Niall.

And even though he knows that now more than ever, it's time to end things with Louis, he still manages to forget.

At least until one late morning when he pushes open the yellow front door of Vinyl Tap.

 

 

There's only one customer inside, a woman in a Burberry coat and heels who's flipping through the shelf of Folk Rock.

She isn't the problem, though. The problem is the two-year-old girl with her.

No, not two. Probably three? Two-year-olds are supposed to be afraid of strangers. Harry has a whole flashcard on that. And Louis must be a stranger. But just as Harry walks into the shop, the girl lets Louis lift her up into his arms. And then she clings happily to his shoulders as he points out the memorabilia at the top of one shelf.

Harry can't even think. All he can do is watch how gentle Louis is with her, how he listens in rapt attention, nodding seriously as she talks. How he laughs when she makes a joke and the girl looks so utterly pleased with herself.

Louis catches sight of Harry just as he's ringing up the woman's purchases, and throwing in a free Rolling Stones sticker for the little girl. He shoots Harry a grin and wave.

And it's all Harry can do to try to breathe around the lump in his throat.

 

 

Harry is curled into the covers of Niall's bed when he finds him.

"You avoid me for _weeks_ ," Niall says, dropping his rucksack on the floor.

"M'sorry," Harry mumbles.

"You lie to me about breaking it off with Louis," Niall continues.

"It wasn't really a lie," Harry protests. Then he blinks. "Wait, how do you know I didn't? Was it Shawn?"

"I'm the one asking the questions here," Niall informs him. "You're the one who's going to tell me what's going on."

"There's nothing to tell," Harry mumbles, burying his face back into Niall's pillow.

"Looks like there might be something."

"He's just not my type." Harry takes a long breath and then dares to peek up at Niall again. "Can we please skip the talking part and go ahead to the part where we eat ice cream and watch romantic comedies?"

 

 

Harry has his first day at the nursery, and all he wants to do at the end of it is tell Louis that nappies are a lot harder to change in real life than the YouTube tutorial made it sound.

He has his second day at the nursery, and all he wants to do is tell Louis that the YouTube tutorial on getting paste out of one's hair was slightly more helpful than the nappy one. 

He has his third day at the nursery, and he hovers a thumb over Louis's name in his messages, where the three unread texts from him are still waiting. But then he presses the power button instead.

More days pass.

Niall tells him to stop sulking but then he goes out and buys him more ice cream anyways.

 

 

Harry is having his nails painted a light, shimmery pink when Niall comes through the front door, guitar case in hand, Canadian exchange student in tow.

"Like it?" Harry holds out his hand for them to see. Leigh-Anne nudges him and he obediently offers up his unpainted hand for her. 

"Yeah, just haven't seen you paint your nails in a while," Niall remarks.

"I mean, I know what people see when they look at me. And I liked being with Louis. Too much. So I figured I'd just not... let him realize that I'm probably less masculine than I look."

Niall is just staring at him, but Leigh-Anne makes an encouraging sound as she moves onto his next nail, so Harry continues.

"I know it's just a stupid, small thing and it's not like I paint my nails that often anyways. But I suppose it was more what it represented?"

Leigh-Anne says, "And you can't change yourself for someone else. That's not healthy, is it?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Niall demands.

"Um, my nails?" Harry glances down at them.

"And you didn't paint your nails because you didn't want Louis to think you liked wearing nail polish?"

"Um, yeah?" Harry's seen the chipped black nail polish Louis had on in one of his Lost Boys videos, but that's a bit different from a neatly manicured pink.

"And so that's why you did the right thing when you broke things off," Leigh-Anne says soothingly.

"Did Louis _tell_ you he didn't like nail polish?" Niall demands, seemingly still hung up on this. "I'll kick his arse if he did, but did he actually tell you that?"

Harry frowns at him. "No, but, I mean, why would something like that even come up?"

Niall looks like his eyes are about to pop out of his head. "Because you were _wearing_ it when he first saw you?"

Harry was certainly not wearing nail polish on their first date.

"At my party?" Niall prompts.

"What? I never saw Louis there." And Harry would have remembered if he had, he's sure of it.

"Well, Louis sure saw _you_ ," Niall lets his rucksack drop heavily down onto the floor. "And, you know what, it was because of some lad slagging off about your nails and—"

"What?"

"And _Louis_ schooled him on it," Niall finishes. "Said they were sick and that the other lad only wished he'd look so good with pink nails."

Harry stares.

"Why wouldn't you tell Harry that?" Leigh-Anne demands.

Niall throws up his hands. "How was I supposed to know it was so important he'd break up with him over it!"

"But you didn't even tell him that Louis knew him." Leigh-Anne turns to Harry. "Did he?"

Harry shakes his head.

"Well, Louis didn't know him. He'd just wanted to be introduced but I told him Harry had a boyfriend and he and Nick had already left by then anyways." Niall drops down into the armchair and shrugs at Harry. "And then you and Nick broke up and he wanted to meet you."

"You're saying that _Louis_ wanted to go out with me," Harry says slowly. "All based off seeing me with pink fingernails?"

"I suppose?" Niall says. "Told him a bit about you, too, just because he kept asking."

"Why did you lie, then?" Leigh-Anne demands.

"I didn't."

"You told Harry it was a blind date."

"And it was. Harry was blind."

"It only counts if they've both never seen the other," she insists.

"I think it still counts," Shawn pipes up loyally from the kitchen.

Harry had forgotten he was there. He twists around and narrows his eyes at him. Shawn holds up his hands innocently.

"You agreed with me that I shouldn't go out with him again," Harry tells Niall. He can't believe this. "You kept telling me I had to stop seeing him."

"And was I wrong?" Niall shoots back hotly. "I think I've been pretty nice about all this seeing as you were leading on my friend, Harry."

"That wasn't — I wasn't leading him on," Harry protests. "It wasn't anything serious for him."

"Are you actually going to try that excuse?" Niall demands. "You were going to go to Leeds together."

"What? How did you even know that?"

"Why would you go to Leeds?" Shawn asks. He sits down on the floor next to Niall's chair with a bowl of cereal.

"Do you mean the Leeds Festival?" Leigh-Anne asks. "That's months from now."

Niall, ignoring them, tells Harry, "What? You thought just because you stopped talking to me that he did, too?"

That... hadn't actually ever occurred to him at all.

"You know, sometimes I can't tell if you're deliberately being an idiot or you're just this slow." Niall crosses his arms over his chest. "Do you honestly think it was so easy going to the shop every time and hearing all about how much he liked you and how happy you made him and then coming home and having you tell me all the reasons he isn't good enough for you?"

"What? No. That's not." Harry's voice cracks. "No. Don't say that. Just. Stop." He tries to wipe at the confused tears springing to his eyes but Leigh-Anne grabs his wrist to stop him with his still-wet nails. He takes a ragged breath. "Niall, you're the one who — I can't do casual hook-ups. You know that. Why would you even set us up?"

Niall's indignant expression falters. "Who's talking about casual hook-ups?"

"Yeah," Shawn says. "Who's talking about that?"

Harry spares a glare for him and then turns to Leigh-Anne for support.

But she's looking at him with a frown. " _Have_ you even hooked up with Louis?"

"What? No. You know I haven't." Harry's chest is tight, and everything hurts all over again.

"Harry, for weeks you spent almost every day together," she says gently. "You texted all the time. You made each other your lock screens."

"They did what?" Shawn asks.

Harry looks down at his hands, the pink shimmer of polish catching the ceiling light, and he bites his lip.

But Leigh-Anne isn't stopping. "You helped him film his song covers. He made flashcards with you."

"He kept the sticker from some orange you gave him," Niall puts in.

"Also—"

"Wait, what's that about the orange?" Harry interrupts her.

"He kept a sticker from an orange?" Niall says. "Said you gave it to him?"

Harry stares at him.

"Also, you apparently made plans to go to Leeds together which is _months_ from now?" Leigh-Anne continues, seemingly unaware that the ground underneath Harry is in the process of disappearing. "I'm still not sure what in all that makes you think he just wanted to hook up with you. Especially when you never did, you know, actually hook up."

 

 

Nick Grimshaw has the fourth-highest student ratings of all the lecturers at the university. He's a good teacher.

Harry isn't even in his course but he'd taught Harry some good lessons, anyways.

He'd taught him that when a man says, _I want that, too_ that what he really means is _I'll say what you want to hear until you realize that you're too young to want to settle down anyways_.

He'd taught Harry that there was no point in asking questions if the answers were lies.

He taught Harry to observe instead.

And was he really supposed to think that a 23-year-old boy, covered in tattoos, who went clubbing every weekend, who'd been fired from almost as many jobs as he'd ever held, who couldn't even feed himself fruits and vegetables on a daily basis — was he supposed to think that boy was more ready for a committed relationship than a thirty-year-old man who had his life all in order?

 

 

But.

 

 

Louis spends hours every week hunting down a wayward friend to make sure he has a proper meal to eat.

 

 

Louis devotes just as much time to elaborate pranks to cheer up the broken-hearted housemate he hadn't even used to like.

 

 

Louis had kept the orange sticker.

 

 

What if Nick's lessons were lies, too?

 

 

Harry gets home from the nursery, picks the dried finterpaints from under his newly painted nails, scrubs the stray paste off the back of his neck, tugs on a pair of jeans and hurries out again.

He waits impatiently for his bus but then gets to the record shop too early. So he gets himself lost wandering around the town centre. He's about to open his maps app when instead he gets the sudden courage to check his unread texts.

And then has a minor breakdown over the _i don't know what just happened_ and the _do you really think we're not compatible?_ and the _could we talk a little more?_ waiting for him there.

By the time he recovers and gets himself un-lost, he has to sprint to make it back to Vinyl Tap in time.

Harry comes to a halt abruptly just as Louis is coming out the door. He watches, panting to catch his breath, as Louis's blue eyes widen in the late afternoon light.

"I got your texts," he blurts out.

Louis looks tired, gaunt, eyes sunken. He just stares back at him.

"Shit," Harry swears. "That's now what I meant to say — I was coming to see you and I finally had the courage to open them and I'm sorry I didn't read them sooner. I'm sorry I didn't reply. I'm just — I'm so sorry, Lou."

Louis still hasn't said anything.

"Um." Harry bites his lip. "Do you still want to? Talk, I mean?"

Louis looks like he's about to say something, but then stops himself, looks across the road, eyes unfocused, to where a group of teens are gathered in front of the comic book shop. Then he turns back to Harry and says, "No."

Harry staggers a step back, feels tears already well in at his eyes. "Right. Yeah, okay, I just wanted to say I was sorry and—"

"No. That's not." Louis's voice is rough. He clears his throat. "I can't right now.

Harry hugs his arms over his chest. 

"I have to meet Liam."

"No, I understand." Harry swallows. "Maybe, um, another time? If you still want. You can text me. I promise it won't take me a week to read it this time."

"Another time," Louis repeats faintly as Harry cringes at his own weak joke.

"Okay, I'll just, um, go?" Harry takes another step backwards and, when Louis doesn't stop him or say anything else, just stares off again across the road, he turns to walk back to the bus stop.

"Zayn's missing."

Harry turns back around at the soft words. "He's missing?"

"Well, he's always fucking missing, that's not news." Louis tugs distractedly at the grey beanie covering his hair. "He's just _more_ missing at the moment."

"Lou?" Harry takes a cautious step closer to him.

"It's fine," Louis says. Then he shakes his head and gives a short laugh. "Well, no, it's not fine. It's been almost two weeks now and I can't find him. There was only one other time it had been this long and —" He cuts himself off. "Well, none of his bloody 'friends' even know where he is this time and Li's going mad." Louis suddenly meets Harry's eyes again, shoulders slumping down. "I'm sorry. This isn't your problem."

"Of course it's my problem," Harry interrupts. "I mean, I want it to be my problem. If you want it to be."

Louis stares at him in confusion.

"I care about you so much, Lou. What can I do?"

 

 

Harry isn't sure he wants to know what happened in the past to make Louis check for Zayn in every alleyway they pass and peek behind every skip. 

But they don't find him in an alleyway. Or the carpark where Harry had seen him the first time. Or at the skate park. Or under the railway bridge.

Louis pulls out his phone again to check for a nonexistent message, and then shoves it back into his pocket with a sigh.

Harry's never seen him anxious like this. Without thinking, he reaches for his hand and slots their fingers together.

Louis's mouth drops open, staring down at their joined hands.

Harry starts to pull away and there's an apology at the tip of his tongue, but then Louis tightens his grip, squeezing back.

 

 

They meet Liam near the town centre and, judging by the agitated way he's pacing and rubbing his hand over his short stubbled hair, he hasn't had any better luck.

His expression falls as soon as he lays eyes on them.

"Harry?" he asks, sounding confused. "What are you doing here?"

"I—"

"Do you really think you can just show up after what you did—"

"Save it. He's helping." And then before Liam, who looks like he has some more words to say, can get them out, Louis asks, "You hear back from Malay yet?"

 

 

The sun has well set by the time they're walking down the road by the canals. The muted thrum of music and club-goers from Triangle and the other clubs and bars drifts over to their quieter side.

Louis and Liam both have their phones out, debating whether to try texting someone named Naughty Boy again, when a loud ding sounds into the night.

Harry fumbles at his own phone, almost dropping it into the canal below. When he looks up, both Louis and Liam's eyes are on him.

"Sorry, sorry." He glances down at it to check and shakes his head. "Sorry, it's just my flatmate's new tattoo—"

He's about to turn it off when a hand circles gently over his wrist.

"What's that?" Louis asks, staring down at the photo.

"It's, um. You remember Leigh-Anne, right?" Harry says. "She'd been wanting to get a butterfly for a while and she finally found someone who could draw it the way she pictured it. It's nothing important. I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Can I?" Louis slips the phone out of his hands and then zooms in on the photo. "Shit. This is from tonight?"

"Yes?" Harry says, confused. "I mean, it's probably from right now. She'd said she was going to go after her shift at the pizza place."

"Which shop is this?"

"I can ask? Um. Why, though?"

"Payno." Louis nudges Liam, who's been staring unseeing out across the empty canal below. "Look at this."

"What?" he demands. But then he looks down at the phone in Louis's hands and inhales sharply.

Harry peers over their shoulders to see that Louis has zoomed in not on the reddened skin around the new butterfly on Leigh-Anne's shoulder, but on a bare tattooed arm caught the corner of the photo.

 

 

The tattoo artist is bent over the arm of the only customer inside Ink Again. His head is shaved and the tattoos on the back of his neck extend up the between the bones of his skull.

"It's him," Liam whispers and starts to step forwards, but Louis grabs him by the arm.

"If you're looking for a tattoo, can look for our samples, but we're near closing." Harry turns around to see a man sitting on top of the front desk.

At the sound, the tattoo artist jerks up. His eyes widen as he takes them in.

" _Zayn_ ," Liam says, voice breaking.

It is Zayn, Harry can tell now. He has the same dark eyes, same sharp jaw, same piercings. Just the long hair that had been pulled into a bun has been shaved off.

"What's going on?" the customer asks from his seat.

"Um," Liam starts.

"Nothing," Louis takes over when Liam appears to be incapable of forming proper words. "Heard there was a sick new artist who just started. Wanted to check him out."

Zayn's eyes get even wider.

"Should we go?" Liam asks, voice coming out strained. "I — we — _I_ can go. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Zayn exhales a brittle breath but then glances down at the customer's mostly-finished skull and crossbones. "Well, about done here, anyways, aren't we?"

 

 

They stay long enough that Zayn finishes up with the customer and the man at the reception — also named Liam, it turns out — leaves him to close the shop. Apparently, he's the proper tattoo artist and Zayn has been taken on to finish the apprenticeship he'd dropped out from a year ago.

"Where are you staying, mate?" Louis asks as Zayn fiddles with the shop key ring.

Zayn's eyes skitter away without answering.

"Come home."

"I'll leave." Liam's words come out in a desperate rush. "I'll stay with my sister for a while. If you don't want to see me, if that's why you haven't — you can have the room back. I'll get all my stuff out tonight—"

"I don't want you to move out," Zayn snaps, interrupting him. He reaches up to run his hand over his shaved skull. "Fuck. That's the last thing I want."

"It is?" Liam asks, voice breaking. "Are you sure? Why didn't you come home then?"

Feeling like an intruder, Harry attempts a surreptitious step backwards, but just ends up hitting the edge of a worktop and knocking over a cup of drawing pencils.

The others all seem too occupied to notice, though, as he scrambles to clean them up.

"Well, how about because I was a fucking mess?" Zayn demands. "Is that a good enough reason?"

"You weren't a—"

"I was. I am. You deserve better than dealing with my shit," Zayn says. "So much better. You both did."

"Don't be an idiot," Louis snaps. "You never had to leave. We wanted you any way you were. How do you not know that?"

Zayn's mouth parts, but he doesn't say anything. 

"Were you ever going to come back?" Liam ventures in a small voice.

"Yes," Zayn interrupts. "I just thought I'd get my life in order first."

"Well, looks like you got this proper new apprenticeship, so, congratulations, Malik, it's in order," Louis tells him. "Now, come home."

"Trust me. You don't want me there. It's not even been three days since the last time I — Look. Fuck." Zayn crosses his arms around himself. "Do you know the longest I've ever gone? Not even a bloody week, mate."

"And, what? You think it'll be easier whilst you're living — wherever the fuck you're living?"

"I just—"

"Come home," Louis says firmly.

 

 

"Zayn asked me one day if his boy could move in," Louis tells Harry as they walk back along the canal.

After finally exacting Zayn's promise to come back, they'd left him alone with Liam back at the shop for some privacy.

"Yeah?" Harry says.

"He was this annoying straight-laced lad who wouldn't let us smoke indoors, but it meant we could split the rent three ways so there was that."

Harry gives him a small smile.

Louis stops abruptly and glances around. "Where are we going?"

"You could, um," Harry says. "Come back to mine?"

 

 

Harry glances around his empty flat. 

The others are all still out at the pub to celebrate Leigh-Anne's new tattoo, so it's just him and Louis.

Louis is silent as he looks around. Harry fidgets with the bracelets around his wrist and wonders how the place looks to Louis's eyes. It's clean, mostly organized, and it came furnished with nice, new sofas and beds and wardrobes when they'd moved in last autumn. There's a full kitchen. It's just about the opposite of Louis's cramped terrace.

They've shared it a year but there isn't much decoration. That would normally have Harry's job, but he'd spent so many nights over at Nick's that he'd never bothered to do much. And now, well, Shawn's going back to Toronto at the end of the summer and they haven't even decided if they're keeping it after that.

"Tea?" Harry offers. "Or a beer? Or, um, we have wine spritzer?"

Louis raises his eyebrows. "Spritzer?"

Harry bites his lip.

"Tea'd be brilliant, babe," Louis says softly.

So Harry goes to set up the kettle and Louis trails after him to the kitchen. He gestures to the drawer when Louis asks where the tea is, and Louis lets out a surprised laugh.

"You've got a Londoner, an Irishman and a Canadian here. Who's the Yorkshire drinker?"

"It's you." Harry takes the box of Yorkshire tea from Louis's hands and grabs a couple of mugs from the cupboard.

"Me?"

"In case you ever came over."

Harry avoids Louis's eyes, well aware he's thinking the same thing Harry is, that he'd never invited him over.

He hadn't wanted Niall to find them here. But also he hadn't wanted Louis to see the fairy lights up in his room, the nail varnish on the top of his desk.

And, more than that, hadn't wanted to have to remember Louis in this space after everything ended.

"There should be some milk in the fridge unless Shawn forgot it was his turn to buy more."

Louis is still staring at him. "I don't understand, H. You broke up with me. And then you went out and bought my tea?"

Harry cringes at the "broke up". Maybe he should be happy that means that Louis thought what they had was a relationship to "break up" from. But instead it makes him feel so miserable and so wrong.

When Harry doesn't answer, Louis just stuffs a tea bag in one mug and then looks back in the drawer. "What do you want, love?"

Harry doesn't really drink tea but he says, "Um. Same." He grabs for the kettle and is about to pour it but then hesitates. "This is how you like it, yeah? Water first. Milk, no sugar?"

"Yeah," Louis says quietly. "That's exactly how I like it."

 

 

Harry draws his legs up onto the bed, socked toes digging into the duvet as he wraps his arms around his knees.

Louis is on the other side, legs crossed, mug held between his hands. Harry's own tea is cooling untouched on the bedside table.

Louis looks so tired, eyes sunken, cheekbones somehow more prominent than they had been just over a week ago.

"Lou," Harry breaks the silence. And Louis looks up, blue eyes meeting his. "We don't have to talk now. You look so tired. You could just sleep here. I'll take the sofa."

"Don't reckon I'll be able to sleep without knowing..." He looks away and then back at Harry. "Hazza, why am I here? Is this just to do a proper, _it's not you, it's me_?"

Harry hesitates, then he says honestly, quietly, "I don't know."

Louis sighs and turns his mug around in his hands. "Look, it's alright. I wasn't expecting this to last as long as it did."

Harry feels his heart sink, chest tightening. _But you kept the orange sticker_ , he wants to protest. 

"I know I'm not the sort of guy you usually go for." Louis looks pointedly down at the tattoos going up his bare arms. "Niall warned me, you know. You date doctors and poets and I reckon your ex was a proper twat, but he was a lecturer at least and I'm just some punk lad who failed his A-levels."

"Lou," Harry says, heart breaking.

"But then we got on well. So well, didn't we? Course, I knew you were holding back, but —" He raises his eyes to Harry. "But then you kissed me. And I thought maybe you felt it, too."

Harry feels his mouth going dry. "Felt what, Lou?"

Louis doesn't answer, just shakes his head. "H, why am I here tonight?"

Harry doesn't even know how to start explaining and so he just ends up blurting out, "I want babies."

"Babies?" Louis repeats, eyes widening slightly.

"Lots of babies," Harry says. "At least three. And not in ten years from now. I know m'young but I don't need to _wait_ or figure things out."

"Alright?"

Harry tries to think, to collect his thoughts, but they come out all out of order anyways. "Also, I'm not _your_ type." He gestures up to the fairy lights. "I'm the type of boy who has fairy lights in his bedroom and I don't even like beer and I wear nail polish sometimes."

Louis just watches him.

"And I want a wedding and a house and babies and a cat and maybe a dog, too. I want everything." If this is the end, he might as well rip it off like a plaster. So he takes a shaky breath and says, "Lou, I want all of that with _you_. I know it's too soon to say any of this, but this is who I am. You're the best person I've ever met. And I saw you with the girl in the shop that morning and you were so good with her and I realized that all I could picture was you there with me for all those things. I'm in love with you. I'm so in love with you."

Louis's looks utterly staggered, eyes wide, mouth dropped open.

"You don't have to say anything," Harry says after a miserable moment of silence. "I know this is too much—"

"For me, it was when you showed me your tattoo," Louis interrupts, gripping his mug tightly. "I was infatuated with you from the moment I first saw you. I couldn't get you off my mind. But when you showed me your tattoo, that's when I knew."

"Knew?" Harry repeats weakly.

Louis gives Harry a small smile. "You were being all dramatic about it, saying you only had one and you'd given it a lot of thought because you wanted it to be something you'd never regret. And then you bent down — honestly, thought you might've been about to show me your arse — but instead you just took off your shoe."

Harry knows the ending to the story. It had taken Louis a good ten minutes to stop laughing at the word 'big' written proudly over the top of his big toe.

"And, yeah, that was when I knew." Louis turns his mug around in his hands before meeting his eyes again. "H, if you have feelings for me, whatever you feel — I promise you, I'm right there, too. I'm probably past you."

Harry tightens his arms around his knees. "Lou, but we're not — don't we want different things, though?"

"Do we?"

"I mean, Liam said..."

"He said what?"

"That first night at your place, he said that you were just into casual hook ups," Harry says. "Remember?"

Louis stares at him blankly for a long moment, then his eyes widen in what looks like realization. "Haz, my last relationship was a while ago, I reckon, and, yeah, I've brought lads back a couple of times, but. Fuck." He runs an agitated hand through his hair. "Does that really bother you?" 

"No, Lou, that's not, that's fine—"

"Payno was cranky that night, and he was just being a dick. You know that, yeah?" Louis's eyes widen further. "You don't know that. Did you think — you couldn't have thought that was ever about _you_ , could you?" 

He sets his tea on the bedside table. His hands are shaky and a bit sloshes over the side. Then he leans forwards, touching Harry's arms where they're still wrapped around his knees.

"But you did, didn't you?"

Harry can't help but nod.

"Darling, but you're so, so special. You're so special to me." Louis scoots closer, tightening his grip on his forearms. "What did I do to make think that? I'm sorry—"

"No, Lou, don't say sorry," Harry stops him, chest tight on a choked back sob. " _I'm_ sorry. I'm the idiot here. I didn't even ask you."

"No, you didn't. But you're asking now, aren't you? Fuck. All right, babe, let me make this clear," Louis says, still looking intently into his eyes. "I know I'm not as 'mature' as the men you're used to being with. But if you're trying to scare me off by talking about commitment and babies — you'll have to come up with something else, because that's not going to work."

"Really?" Harry asks in a small voice.

Louis nods, not taking his eyes off him.

"I don't want to scare you off, Lou," Harry says.

"I'm not scared."

"I am," Harry says quietly.

"Yeah, I can see that," Louis rubs his hands up Harry's arms. "That's okay."

Harry releases his tight hug around his knees and moves his legs so Louis can scoot even closer.

Louis's eyes are steady as he takes Harry's face between his hands. "I really want to kiss you. Can I?"

"Please."

Louis leans in and presses his lips to his. Harry bunches his hands in Louis's t-shirt, gripping tight. For how heart-pounding, desperate Harry still feels, it's a soft kiss. It's as gentle as their first. 

When he pulls away, Harry looks into his eyes for a long moment.

"Um, Lou. I need to know. Is it a problem that I'm, um. Not a top?"

"That you're not a... top?"

"I'm not a top," Harry repeats, a little more loudly. He licks his lips and tries to look away, which is hard with Louis being so close. "I mean, I've never topped. I'm not opposed to trying it, but I might not be very good at it." He hesitates. "I just thought you should know."

"You're not a top," Louis repeats. And then he laughs. It's not cruel, though, it's a laugh of relief, and Harry can see the way his body relaxes for the first time that night. "Darling, you never have to do anything you don't like. Not with anyone. Definitely not with me."

"But what about you, though?" Harry bites his lip. "You're a bottom."

"I am?" Louis raises his eyebrows. "Because I have a big one?"

"No," Harry insists.

"Then, why? Because I'm not that big a guy?"

Louis seems more amused than offended, at least. But Harry feels like an even greater idiot right now, if that is even possible. "You said you liked it, though. When I was touching your arse the other day."

"What?" Louis laughs. "Haz, I love it when you touch me anywhere."

Harry bites his lip.

"I don't want anything you don't." Louis traces Harry's lower lip with the callused tip of his finger. "I promise. And, for the record, babe?"

"Yeah?"

"It's really more about the person than the position for me."

"And the person—" Harry starts.

"You," Louis says. He leans in to kiss him again. "You're the person."

 

 

They kiss until they get too sleepy to kiss any more. Harry wakes up in the morning overheated and uncomfortable because they'd fallen asleep without even taking their clothes off, but he doesn't care because Louis's arms are wrapped around his waist and his nose is nudging at the back of his neck.

 

 

"Don't you agree, Harry?" Leigh-Anne asks over the electronic beat of the music.

"Of course I agree."

"Good, then—"

"He's so annoying, though," he tells her, not taking his eyes off the dance floor. "I still can't believe he left the house wearing those jeans."

"Wait. Are we —" Leigh-Anne chokes out a laugh. "It's been months, Harry! Are we really still complaining about Louis's black skinnies?"

"Not just the jeans!" Harry waves an arm at the dance floor. "It's the t-shirt, too. Why does he have to _look_ like that?"

He takes a frustrated sip of his strawberry daquiri.

"You know, I can't even tell if you're jealous or turned on right now," she says.

"Neither can I," Harry mutters.

He can't quite tear his eyes away from the dance floor. Steve's DJing at Triangle tonight and Louis rounded them all up to turn out for him. The strobe lights alternately light up each of them in the crowd: Louis, Shawn, Niall, Bebe, Perrie, some of the others. Liam and Zayn are here, too, but sat at the bar. Zayn refuses to dance, apparently on principle, and Liam refuses to leave Zayn's side.

"Probably more of the second one," Harry decides after some deliberation.

"I... don't think I needed to know that," Leigh-Anne says.

"You're the one who brought it up."

"Actually," she says more loudly as the music picks up in volume. "I thought we were talking about football just now."

 

 

When Harry comes up behind his boyfriend, he feels him tense for just a split second. But then Louis looks behind him, meeting Harry's eyes with a crinkly-eyed smile, and relaxes against back against his chest.

Harry spreads his hands over Louis's stomach and bends down to press a kiss to the side of his neck.

Louis giggles and twists around, lips brushing against Harry's ear when he says, "Saw you watching me, babe."

"I was not."

"Been obsessed with my arse all night," Louis sing-songs over the music.

"Lies," Harry informs him.

"Could barely take your eyes off it. And now, look at you." Louis pushes back said arse against Harry's crotch. Harry scrabbles helplessly for a grip on his hips as he grinds back against him shamelessly.

Harry tries to breathe, to just focus on the pink triangles lighting up the walls. Tries not to be as turned on as he is right now.

Louis twists back again to say next to whisper, "Careful, babe, don't want any misunderstandings, I'll think you want to top."

"Heyyy." Harry pouts.

Louis giggles and turns around in Harry's arms. He reaches down, traces Harry's helplessly hard cock through his jeans. "Hi, darling."

"Hi." Harry can't resist smiling back at his ridiculous, absolutely mental boyfriend.

Louis kisses him and then informs him, "You taste like strawberries."

" _You_ taste like strawberries," Harry replies nonsensically.

Louis just murmurs and kisses him again more deeply.

"Reckon I taste like strawberries _now_ ," Louis says when he pulls back. His eyes are sparkling in the strobe lights. Maybe Harry has been staring for a while because Louis leans in and says, "What's that look for?"

"You look happy," Harry tells him.

"Do I?" Louis says. He slips his hands around to Harry's arse and squeezes. "Well, I get to take this hot, twinky, _bottom_ home with me tonight, so—"

 

 

"I could do it, though," Harry says, daringly, a few hours later as they stumble up the hazardously narrow stairs of Louis's terrace.

Louis squeezes his hand. "Could what, babe?"

"I could top you."

Louis halts on a step and looks at him, eyes widening. Harry bites his bottom lip. It's been months and they've done a lot but they haven't done that. They haven't even talked about doing that, but it's been on Harry's mind more lately. And especially on his mind after seeing Louis on the dance floor all night.

"Haz, you know I was just teasing you, yeah?" Louis says.

"I know."

Louis looks at him for a long moment. "You're serious."

Harry nods. "If you want me to. I mean, I probably won't be very good at it, though. You know I've never—"

"Darling," he says as he tugs Harry into the bedroom and pushes him back against the closed door. "I don't think it's possible that you wouldn't be."

 

 

Louis shivers under him as he circles his finger around his hole and moans into Harry's mouth as he pushes inside.

"That's good, babe," Louis murmurs against his lips. He wraps a leg around Harry's waist to give him a better angle and shamelessly pushes back against Harry's hand.

"Yeah?"

"So good."

Harry kisses him again. And then keeps giving him soft kisses as he gently opens him up. Louis smiles against his lips and arches against the slow thrusts of Harry's fingers. They're both a little giggly from beer and daquiris and dancing. Sometimes they come together in a desperate rush, but sometimes it's like this, a little softer, slower, sweeter.

"Babe," Louis says after a while. "Still want to fuck me?"

"I do," Harry says, feeling his heart pick up again. "But you don't need more? I'm sort of, um."

"Big?" Louis finishes for him, reaching down, his hand closing over his dick, thick and hard between them. "You are, babe. Got a fucking fantastic cock."

Harry licks his lips. Thinks about watching Louis slip his mouth over Harry, looking up at him from under his long lashes, blue eyes not leaving his as he takes him slowly, smoothly, all the way down.

Sex with Louis is like something from porn sometimes. Like, commercial porn, with good lighting and everything exaggerated and unrealistic and too good to be true. Except it is true. It is real.

Harry can't believe he ever thought being with Louis would make him feel like _less_. That this boy, who looks like a punk sort of twink, sassy and pretty and with a body out of every gay man's fantasies — that this boy, tops _Harry_ , tells _Harry_ he's pretty, kisses _Harry's_ painted fingernails, tells _Harry_ he's good —

Harry doesn't think he's ever felt more like himself than when he's with Louis.

"I don't need more, babe," Louis promises, kissing him again. "You know I've got a dildo or two around."

Harry _does_ know. He's seen them. And there are always nights they don't spend together and so he's also heard over the phone, more than once, Louis describe in detail exactly how it feels to fuck himself with them.

"That pink one's about your size," Louis murmurs. "Always imagine it's you in me."

Harry pulls back just a little, letting his fingers slip out of Louis. "You imagined this? Like, you, um, fantasized about... me?"

Louis laughs. "Are you actually _surprised_?"

"You could've told me, though," Harry insists, meeting his eyes. "You should've said how much you wanted this."

Louis gives him a soft smile and pushes his fingers through Harry's hair. It's getting longer, almost past his shoulders now.

"I think about doing everything with you. But I only want what you want, H," Louis tells him. "Now, how _do_ you want me? Like this? Hands and knees? Want me to ride you?"

"I—" Harry doesn't even know. "Any way. I just want you, Lou. I want to be good for you."

Harry knows that doesn't sound quite like anything a real top would say, but Louis doesn't seem to mind at all. He's smiling up at Harry, eyes sparkling, as he assures him, "You're _always_ good for me, darling."

He reaches for the lube to slick up his cock and says, "You'll tell me what to do, though?"

"If you want me to, yeah."

"I want you to."

 

 

"Wait, no, don't move," Harry yelps.

Louis stills underneath him, eyes widening. "You alright?"

Harry is definitely not all right. 

"Babe. Look at me." Louis pushes Harry's hair away from his face. "What's wrong?"

"I'm going to come, Lou," he says. And if he comes in the first five seconds of barely pushing inside his boyfriend for the first time, he'll never be all right again.

"What?" Louis sounds incredulous.

Harry is propped over him, Louis's muscled calves over his shoulders, and his arms are already trembling from the effort of keeping himself still. He's buried to the hilt inside his boyfriend and — is it so overwhelming because he went too fast? God. That was at least half Louis's fault. He'd pushed up against him so impatiently as soon as he'd barely had the tip of his cock in. Fuck.

"You didn't tell me it was like this, Lou," Harry accuses him. Louis is hot and tight inside and it's torture. He can barely think.

"Like what?" Louis asks.

"It's just so much." Harry forces his eyes open, to meet Louis's intent blue eyes. "I can feel you everywhere, Lou, all around me. It's the same but it's so different. I need to catch my breath."

Louis wipes the sweat off Harry's brow. "I know."

"You feel it, too?" Harry asks.

"I'm so, so in love with you, H." Louis rubs his thumb over Harry's bottom lip. "Course I feel it, too."

 

 

"Remember the first day Leigh-Anne came to the shop?" Harry asks.

Louis makes a noise of acknowledgement as he reaches for the duvet. Harry nestles his head on his shoulder once Louis settles back down.

"She came to find out if you were a top or a bottom," Harry continues

Louis bursts out a laugh as he tucks the duvet in around Harry's shoulder. It's starting to get cold now that the sweat is cooling on their bodies. "Did she? So, what, you two thought sending a girl into the shop would get it out of me? Dastardly plan, that."

It seems strange looking back now, how anxious he'd been. Louis is the easiest person to talk to about anything. He only makes fun of Harry when he knows he doesn't mind. Usually he just listens attentively and nods and asks questions and makes Harry feel like he's the most interesting person he's ever met, even if all Harry's doing is going on about a new method he's found for getting paste out of a kid's hair.

"It wasn't my idea," Harry says. "I told her not to come."

"Right," Louis says. "So, what was the verdict?"

"She thought you were a top," Harry tells him.

Louis laughs. "Did she?"

"Wait, no." Harry pauses. "Actually, she said you were _my top_. That sounds different, doesn't it?"

"Ah." Louis traces his fingers down Harry's stomach, scratching at the trail of hair at the bottom of it and making Harry squirm. "I suppose that's a word for it."

"For what?"

"For us, I reckon."

"Maybe you can be my top even when I'm _on_ top," Harry says slowly.

"If you want," Louis says.

"What do you want?"

"I want..." Louis shifts onto his side so they're facing each other and he squeezes Harry's hip. "Want to take care of you."

"I want to take care of you, too," Harry tells him. "I want to be good for you."

"You are always," Louis promises him.

They lay there for a while beside each other quietly. Louis runs his fingers through Harry's hair. It's soothing and Harry's about to nod off to sleep when he hears Louis say: "When are you moving in with me, Curly?"

Harry's eyes pop open. He sits up on an elbow to look at him. "You want me to move in with you?"

Louis nods.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really." Louis laughs. "And I have it on good authority that you lot haven't extended your flatshare."

"Niall," Harry mutters.

"Shawn, actually. That boy's a proper gossip," Louis says. "So, what do you say, H? Want to split rent four ways for this shit little house? It'll be well within your student budget, I reckon."

"Well, when you put it like that..." Harry bites his lip. "You mean it, though?"

"Of course I bloody mean it, babe." Louis laughs and kisses his cheek. "I already cleared out half the wardrobe for you."

Harry glances over at the wardrobe is jammed between the bed and the wall. He feels a warmth swell in his chest. 

"Is it the half with the door that opens?" he asks.

"Who do you take me for? I think I'm a bit offended."

"So, the half that doesn't open, then?" Harry concludes.

Louis narrows his eyes at him. "Maybe it's just my evil ploy to get you naked all the time."

Harry looks at him for a long moment. Then he says, "Yeah."

Louis raises his eyebrows.

"I'll move in," Harry tells him. Then holds up a finger. "On one condition."

"And what's that?"

"The wardrobe side that opens."


End file.
